In the article, we covered just a few of the benefits of fasting including the ability to burn fat without restricting your diet to bland salads and dried-out chicken breast. The story is a simple one:

Enjoy your favorite foods without guilt or anxiety and you will lose weight.

Fasting with favorite foods can equal weight loss - just go easy on the whipped cream!

Eye brows were raised, sentences re-read, and conversations ensued. One of our readers, Al, openly questioned the whole concept:

That sounds all well and good, BUT don’t I still need to eat healthy foods to lose weight. It doesn’t make sense that I can eat pizza and hot dogs everyday, input 2 24-hour fasts, and still expect to lose weight? Am i missing something?

Here is my response to Al which I’d like to share with everyone:

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Hi Al,

Thanks for writing.  I’ll do my best to answer your question, if you still have any questions feel free to hit me back with an email anytime.

You’re not alone for having this question and in my opinion it’s one of the biggest cognitive gaps for people trying to lose weight. Too often people equate eating healthy with losing weight, when in fact it’s not that linear of an equation.

Typically people that eat healthy happen to be more conscious of what they eat in general. Healthy eating usually leads to regular exercise and as a result people are more equipped for losing and maintaining their weight.

Let’s not forget to mention that a diet richer in fruits and veggies (fiber) leaves you more satiated and therefore consuming less calories.

However, you do NOT have to eat healthy foods to lose weight. You really don’t!

If you want your body to function ideally, to have regular bowel movements, healthy hair and skin, and the benefits go on and on and on… then YES, ABSOLUTELY please eat healthy foods – that’s why I do.

However, if you want to lose weight, then we are talking about something else entirely.

To lose weight, the #1 rule is to put your body in a caloric deficit every single day.

This means that the amount of calories that you ingest throughout the course of a day should be LESS that the amount of calories our body burns within the same period of time.

eg. Day 1:

* You eat 1800 calories.
* Between life in general and the 400 calories you burned at the gym, your body expended 2400 calories.
* End result: You are in a caloric deficit of 600 hundred calories for that day.

So with that being said, you can eat ice cream, donuts, pizza, steak dinners, mash potatoes, cinnamon hearts and chocolate cake…

BUT!

But, but, but… you still have to make sure that the calories you consume from all of these foods throughout the course of a day still leave you in a caloric deficit.

And keep in mind, if you have a CHEAT day the additional calories you consume will also have an impact on your overall caloric deficit.

So here is a perfect example:

If you go to a coffee shop, and you are trying to decide between the donut and the muffin and you are trying to lose weight, choose the donut.

Sure, you probably shouldn’t have either of these, BUT if you have to have one, 9 times out of 10 the donut will have fewer calories than the muffin.

I hope this helps.

To the future you,
Mike

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It’s through questions and discussions where learning really takes place in my opinion – we should never take anything at face value. A big thanks to our readers for continuing to share and interact here on the site and as always if you have any questions, please do not hesitate.

To learn more about weight loss with intermittent fasting, see our book review of Eat Stop Eat. Author Brad Pilon provides all the science behind the body’s natural ability to burn fat without guilting ourselves about the foods we love.

At the Fat Loss Authority, we do our best to sort through all the health and nutrition BS our readers might encounter in their everyday lives and we do our best to provide you credible information that we KNOW works.

[Burn some fat and people are sure to take notice... and want to know your secret!]

Something I have found incredibly useful in my personal health and weight loss goals is intermittent fasting. Anyone I have provided this information too has seen results – plain and simple. The ultimate decision is always yours, but let me tell you a little bit about why I think intermittent fasting is an incredibly secret and undervalued weapon for you and your lifestyle.

Flexible intermittent fasting is becoming a very popular way to use your body’s natural ability to burn lots of fat in a short period of time.

Here is a list of the ways that flexible intermittent fasting will turbo charge your fat loss.

1. Burn More Calories

Short term fasting (12-72hrs) actually increases your metabolism and adrenaline levels. This causes you to increase calorie burning during the fast period. The more calories you burn, the faster you can lose weight.

The extra energy you get from the fast might actually help you through a workout or get more work done at the office or around the house. When I did my *first fast I was shocked at how awake and energetic I was. My fasting days are now my most productive days of the week.

2. Increase Food Awareness

The most surprising benefit people report back when they start fasting is a new found awareness of what causes them to eat. When you make a conscious decision to fast for a day your less than flattering eating motivations become painfully obvious.

This is the first and most effective step to getting rid of bat habits for good. Knowing what your motivations are for poor eating choices is essential before you can change them and build better habits.

3. Build Positive Attitudes Towards Yourself and Food

Each short fast is an accomplishment that can build self confidence and gratitude.

At the end of a 24 hour fast you can feel good about your accomplishment and start feeling good about your relationship with food again. The positive empowerment from each fast builds on the last until you feel completely in control of your food choices.

4. Eat All The Foods You Love – Guilt Free

Short term fasting allows you to lose weight and burn fat without restricting any of the foods you love to eat.

With this style of eating you can consume any and all of the foods you like whenever you choose without feeling guilty about it and still lose weight. You will never again have to be sitting in a restaurant picking at a salad while everyone else at the tables indulges in their favorite entree and dessert.

Eating for fat loss doesn’t need to be complicated and food should never be a source of anxiety or guilt. Mixing in a few 24 hours fasts to your week can liberate you from the dieting prison and allow you to enjoy food again.

In our opinion Eat Stop Eat is the first nutrition program anywhere to dispel the nonsense held as fact about weight loss. To read our review on Eat Stop Eat click here and find out what other false information is keeping you from reaching your fat loss goals.

What? Come on man… you’re supposed to eat to get muscle, protein with every meal, 17 meals a day…

OK, I exaggerated that last one a little but you get the point. Fasting and the fear of losing your hard-earned muscle seems to be one of the most prevalent myths out there and it’s time to get to the bottom of it.

[Raise your hand if you've posed for a picture doing the double bicep shot? Of course we have:)]

Use it or lose it sister…

Intermittent fasting reduces your caloric intake but does not result in a loss of your hard-earned muscle if you follow this one golden rule: You have to be involved in some sort of regular resistance training program like strength training, body weight exercises, resistance bands, whatever.

If your pushing, pulling, lifting or holding then your on the right track. NOTE: Speaking of tracks: Can’t you hear “pushing, pulling, lifting, holding” as a catchy sequel to Kayne West/Daft Punk remix of “Stronger” in the near future? Seemed like a great idea until I typed it…

The hospital patient argument

The common comparison fasting naysayers cling to when arguing the above statement is that of hospital patients and the amount of weight some people lose when they stay at a hospital for more then a couple of days. But little does one know about the existing medical conditions of people staying in the hospital, their length of stay, or what type of diet they have been prescribed. In many cases, they are put on low-calorie diets and confined to bed rest. From a basic biological standpoint then yes – absolutely – muscle will be broken down to fuel basic bodily functions because the body is just so damn amazing.

But if your not confined to a hospital or struggling for basic human needs in a third world country, there is a simple way to preserve your precious muscles while effectively burning fat: 1-2 intermittent fasting periods per week combined with resistance exercises with my personal preference being weight training.

This research doesn’t lie

In a study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, researchers from West Virginia conducted a study of men and women undertaking a very low calorie diet. Even with a 12 week long diet consisting of only 800 calories and 80 grams of protein per day, they were able to maintain their muscle mass as long as they were exercising with weights three times per week.

In one of my all-time favorite studies, researchers from Queens University had men restrict their caloric intake by eating 1,000 calories less per day than they normally ate for 16 weeks. They took part in a weight training program 3 days a week and were able to maintain all their muscle mass while losing over 20 pounds of body fat!

I’ll repeat that again:

eat less + resistance exercise = same muscle and less fat.

My experience with fasting and muscles

As long as you are using your muscles, they will not waste away during short periods of dieting. From my own personal fasting and training experience, and in talking with athletes like Vince DelMonte, undergoing periods of low calorie diets while continuing a resistance training program can produce some amazing results. Hell, some of my best workouts have been completed during a fasting period and it’s something I plan to cover in more detail in future fat loss tips.

So if you’ve contemplated intermittent fasting but shied away from it because someone told you that your precious muscles would shrink, think again! Author Brad Pilon is an expert on fasting for fat loss while keeping your rock-hard muscles and has dedicated an entire book called Eat Stop Eat to this practice with even more research studies to boot. He does a great job in explaining the why, what, when, and how’s of fasting so that you to can lose fat but keep your muscles!